Pages

Thursday, April 20, 2006

More pictures from Assumption Day 2005

Here is what the Grotto looked like at 6:45am on August 15, 2005, over twelve hours before the picture in my last post. We had a couple thousand pass through all day for various devotions and this was only one out of about 4-5 masses. People had to be bussed in and out from a Catholic school in the burbs because there was no parking. This is out behind the Church and is a cemetary/grotto - really!

This was taken near the end of the Noon Mass, also held outdoors. Fr. Perrone is seen in cassock and surplice and associate pastor, Fr. John Bustamante is in the very beautiful and very old, Assumption Day chasuble. It was recently fixed up a bit. I think it is one of the finest chasubles on God's green earth and it is the only closeup I have.

This was taken about 3 PM when Fr. Perrone did Benediction and Annointing of the Sick. Fr. Bustamante holds the ombrellino over the Blessed Sacrament as Fr. Perrone carries the monstrance.

In the middle of the 7:00pm Mass, following the Homily, Detroit Auxiliary Bishop, John Quinn, blessed the new statues just added to the Grotto, one of Bernadette, and the other of an angel.

Bishop Quinn in a moment of solitude during Holy Mass as Communion is being distributed by 7 priests outside the view of this photo.

The 7:00pm Mass was ending about 8:45 and the sun was already going down fast. Fr. Perrone is seen kneeling at the Grotto as he consecrates the parish to the Blessed Mother on her feast day. The candles that people laid out all around the center of the grotto are beginning to glow nicely.

Night fell, the Mass ended, and then began a candlelight procession with hundreds singing Marian songs as they walked through the Grotto. They would stop, lift the candles high and sing, "Ave, Ave, Ave Maria!". Trust me, this was not your grandmother's procession as there were plenty of young people captivated by the experience.

Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron

St. John of the Cross

Dark Night of the Soul (2.2:3)...

"...the devil causes many to believe in vain visionsand false prophecies; and strives to make them presumethat God and the saints are speaking with them; and they often trust their own fancy. And the devil is also accustomed, in this state, to fill them with presumption and pride, so that they become attracted by vanity and arrogance, and allow themselves to be seen engaging in outward acts which appear holy, such as raptures and other manifestations. Thus they become bold with God, and lose holy fear, which is the key and the custodian of all the virtues; and in some of these souls so many are the falsehoods and deceits which tend to multiply, and so inveterate do they grow, that it is very doubtful if such souls will return to the pure road of virtue and true spirituality."